U.S. drug advisers recommended that the label for Johnson and Johnson’s Ortho Evra birth control patch be simplified to better explain the risk of blood clots. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration found that the current label for Ortho Evra inadequately reflects the risks women face by using it. The patch, approved in 2001, has been linked to an even higher risk as it contains a much greater amount of the hormone estrogen than a pill.

Did a birth control patch kill a healthy 18-year-old freshman at Trinity College? That’s what her mother, who struggled to raise Adrianna Duffy alone and got her into a private high school, is asking.

On the morning of Sept. 28, Leslie Niedner got a call from the dean of students. I’m so sorry, he kept saying. Her daughter Adrianna had collapsed in her dorm room. The 17-year-old died of a pulmonary embolism – a blood clot in her lung.

Leslie can’t remember who first asked whether Adrianna had been using a contraceptive patch. A few minutes online revealed dozens of similar horror stories. She’s now convinced that Ortho Evra, the target of thousands of lawsuits across the country, had taken her daughter.